Richmond, Va.
Two weeks after a gunman with a history of mental illness killed 32 people and himself on the campus of Virginia Tech University, Virginia Gov. Timothy Kaine this week signed an executive order barring gun sales to people who have been ordered to seek mental health treatment. A state judge had ordered Virginia Tech shooter Seung-Hui Cho to seek outpatient treatment in 2005, after he made suicide threats. But Cho was able to purchase the two pistols he used in the mass killings because under Virginia law at the time, only people who had been ordered into inpatient treatment were barred from gun purchases. Kaine’s order erases the inpatient/outpatient distinction.
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